Soil from Fukushima Daiichi found in baggage at airport in Kiev

A Japanese man was stopped by border guards at Kiev’s Borispol Airport after a radiation detector sounded an alarm during routine bag checks on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany.

According to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, “Two plastic containers with 12 grams of clay soil were found during an inspection of personal belongings. The acceptable level of radiation was exceeded by about a factor of two.”

The passenger told officials that the soil was from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan and that he was couriering it to a university in Zhitomyr, Ukraine.